More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Two months after the local atheist organization here put up a billboard saying âDonât Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,â the groupâs 13 board members met in Laura and Alex Kasmanâs living room to grapple with the fallout.

The problem was not that the group, the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, had attracted an outpouring of hostility. It was the opposite. An overflow audience of more than 100 had showed up for their most recent public symposium, and the board members discussed whether it was time to find a larger place.

And now parents were coming out of the woodwork asking for family-oriented programs where they could meet like-minded nonbelievers.

âIs everyone in favor of sponsoring a picnic for humanists with families?â asked the board president, Jonathan Lamb, a 27-year-old meteorologist, eliciting a chorus of âayes.â ...

Last weekend, the Atheist Film Festival showed more than a dozen films about separation of church and state, freedom of religion (and no religion), the conflict between science and religion in public schools.

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William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

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